Mario & Luigi: Brothership Review

When AlphaDream was disbanded in 2019, I naturally assumed that was the end of the Mario & Luigi series of RPGs. They were known for being relatively short burns with a ton of comedy, centered around fast-paced, rhythmic button presses.

As a fan of Superstar Saga from the very beginning, I was pretty devastated by this news. Until Nintendo unexpectedly announced a new entry, Mario & Luigi: Brothership.

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It takes our wayward brothers and throws them into Concordia’s strange, disconnected world. What follows is a charming and surprisingly meaty adventure in the colorful series.

I’m On a Boat!

Mario & Luigi Brothership Shipshape Flotilla

Concordia was once held together by the massive Uni-Tree. Think of a mixture of organic and electrical, and you’re on the right track. It spread an energy called Connectar throughout the land until, suddenly, the tree was destroyed. Cue everything drifting apart, with the land splitting into a multitude of islands.

Mario and Luigi work with a chatty pig creature named Snoutlet and a young Wattanist named Connie to fix this. She had the foresight to plant a seed from the Uni-Tree on Shipshape Island (the game’s HUB area).

While the plot in Brothership is certainly serviceable, it didn’t blow me away. Sure, there are a lot of valuable themes, like the value of unity, but the bad guys didn’t do it for me.

They’re called the Extension Corps, and work for a villain named Zokket. They’re quirky foils, but none of them hooked me like bad guys in the previous game managed to.

Mario & Luigi Brothership Wattanist Connie

I’m also not fond of how the introduction is handled. It’s not narrated at all and basically revolves around Luigi almost getting himself killed, and then saved by Mario.

Somehow, this opens a portal to Concordia that hoovers up several residents of the Mushroom Kingdom.

Not that I expected high literature by any means. I would have just preferred a more robust explanation for why things happened. Thankfully, the story isn’t what you play most Mario & Luigi RPGs for. So, let’s talk about how the game actually plays.

Link It Up

Mario & Luigi Brothership Uni Tree Growth

You may be wondering how two plumbers and a young Wattanist can reconnect the land. The answer is by linking them to the Uni-Tree. Each island has a lighthouse, and once you activate it, you’ll uncover a gigantic flying plug.

Mario and Luigi ride it back to Shipshape Island, where it connects with the Uni-Tree, tethering the island to it, and towing it behind. Don’t get too caught up on how that’s possible. I certainly didn’t.

What’s neat is that once linked, villagers will visit Shipshape Island, providing optional side quests. Connectar Flowers will also bloom, opening up new parts of that island, as well as something called Sprite Bulbs coming out of hiding.

You can also go to any linked island and use your handy Return Pipe to either warp immediately back to Shipshape or any other linked island.

Mario & Luigi Brothership Connectar Flower

What impressed me the most about Mario & Luigi: Brothership was how much content is included. Unlike previous entries, you have branching choices at various points in the game. At first, it’s choosing whether to rescue Billdit or Maykit, siblings known for their skills in making gloves and accessories, respectively.

Later on, you’ll make choices such as sending Princess Peach or Luigi on an undercover mission.

Though the broad strokes of the story remain the same, it’s nice to have replay value. As for the aforementioned side quests, several of those are time-sensitive. So it behooves you to tackle them sooner rather than later.

Luigi Hates Cannons

The main flow for the game is using your Ocean Map to sail to new currents, discovering islands, firing Mario & Luigi at them with the Big Cannon, linking the lighthouse, rinse, and repeat. There’s just a lot of fighting you’ll be doing in the interim.

Thankfully, this is another area where Mario & Luigi: Brothership shines. They made the smart decision to treat the adventure like a proper RPG rather than one where the combat is optional, such as in Paper Mario: The Origami King.

Your stats will increase as you level up, and when you reach certain milestones, you’ll rank up. This allows you to choose a passive bonus, such as increasing how much damage you deal with hammers, leveling up quicker, or even additional gear slots.

While I missed having total control over my stat distribution in earlier Mario & Luigi games, I felt this was a fair and balanced system.

Additionally, the different brothers naturally focus on certain stats as they level up. Mario gets more increases in his speed and power, while Luigi is more of a turtle, with high defense and STACHE points.

In my 20+ hours with the game, I had Luigi become an expert with hammers and Mario focused on his proclivity for jumping.

Hammer and Bounce

Mario & Luigi Brothership Combat Counter

Combat itself is turn-based and highly dependent on timing. Though you make selections for both brothers with the A button, afterward you’ll use A for Mario and B for Luigi.

You’ll need to pay attention to enemy cues to figure out which brother is being targeted, and can even use a new mechanic called Emergency Guard if you’re not confident about nailing the timing. Just keep in mind that stat reductions from enemies will still impact you when you use this ability.

Once you’re in the thick of battle, you can either jump on foes or wallop them with hammers, once unlocked. If a foe is spiky, you’ll want to use your hammer, and if they’re flying, you have to jump on them.

You’ll also amass several different Bros. Attacks, though not by virtue of leveling up. Most of them are gadgets an eccentric genius makes for you.

Those include the Red Shell, Green Shell, Zapperator, Bomb Derby, Jump Helmet, and my personal favorite, Hatch Me if You Can.

By nailing the timing with any attack, you’ll get a satisfying Excellent, and deal much more damage as a result. What’s a bit different about Brothership is that most Bros. Attacks change to an almost first-person perspective before you start inputting presses of A and B.

Perhaps the most unique aspects of the game are the Battle Plugs and Power Tap. As you explore the islands, you’ll discover hidden creatures called Sprite Bulbs.

It’ll be several hours until you know why you’re collecting them, but eventually, you can use them to create Battle Plugs from the menu. The Power Tap determines how many can be plugged in at a time, and will grow as you get farther in the story.

Mario & Luigi Brothership Sneaky Goombas

Different combinations of Battle Plugs will provide unique effects, such as spreading negative statuses to certain species of enemies, freezing a group of enemies or dropping spiked balls on their heads whenever you get an Excellent attack combo.

My only complaint about this novel system is that each Battle Plug has a limited number of uses before they have to be recharged, and doing so takes quite a while. Every action you use ticks down the timer, but it’s usually in excess of 20 or more turns.

Considering that most regular battles are over in 2–5 turns, this felt a little excessive. Not to mention that the game isn’t great about announcing when a Battle Plug is fully charged.

Platforming Plumbers

Even though the Mario & Luigi series is an RPG, there’s also plenty of platforming. Luigi automatically follows behind Mario, and by pressing L, you can direct him to interact with any glowing objects on the screen.

This includes plucking vegetables from the ground, smashing boxes with his hammer and activating switches. It’s almost like he’s a giant Pikmin and Mario is Captain Olimar, which I found pretty entertaining.

You can also manually control both brothers, having Mario jump with A and Luigi with B and swinging their hammers with X and Y, respectively.

They’ll have to be in sync to solve numerous puzzles as well, which was fun more often than not. You’ll be tossing objects back and forth, navigating tricky platforms and mazes, hovering past lava, and much more besides.

The Brains of the Operation

My favorite thing in the game is something called Luigi Logic. It leans into the humor I so appreciated in earlier entries.

Luigi will have sparks of inspiration that let the brothers use new techniques, including special Bros. Moves (not to be confused with Bros. Attacks). These have them come together to transform into strange new forms to navigate their environment.

Use the UFO Spin to hover across chasms, or the Bro Ball to navigate tiny pipes. You’ll also get access to the Fire / Ice Flowers quite late, allowing the bros to freeze and melt obstacles in their path. You’ll even learn secondary skills, such as having the UFO hoover up coins, or the Bro Ball zipping up ramps like a certain hedgehog.

If that wasn’t enough, Luigi Logic also comes into play in challenging boss battles. Properly doing small mini-games allows him to stun the boss, opening the door to deal a ton of damage before they recover.

Beautiful Boneheads

Mario & Luigi Brothership Extension Corps

Visually, Mario & Luigi: Brothership is a candy-coated affair that fits right in with the series. There’s a cel-shaded quality to the models that reminds me a little of The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker.

The design for the residents of Concordia is also whimsical, where they all have socket faces and much like Mario and Luigi, are generally skinny as a rail or plump.

I especially enjoyed the design of Extension Corps, who are like Fawful if he were a boy band. Musically, the game is pretty upbeat and breezy, though perhaps not the most memorable.

As far as how approachable the game is, Brothership is fairly well-balanced. The story does a good job of signposting when a branching choice is the harder option, and the game autosaves quite regularly.

Save and Recovery Blocks are also strewn about pretty generously, and I never felt like I was low on cash, since you’ll find piles just sitting around.

Shipshape Island even automatically slows down when approaching an island or object of curiosity, and the Return Pipe makes getting around a piece of cake. But with all that in mind, the game still wasn’t quite perfect.

Room For Improvement

I mentioned earlier my frustration with the Battle Plugs, which I felt could have been much more streamlined and easy to use, especially given how late in the game they get introduced.

I’m also a bit annoyed by the pacing of the game. I didn’t encounter my first boss until 3-4 hours into the experience, which seemed a bit late. Admittedly, things picked up from that point on.

Lastly, I was a little perturbed that certain aspects of the game were introduced that either felt pointless or were only used a couple of times.

You’ll come across hidden Grampy Turnips that share their “wisdom,” and it wasn’t until the end of the adventure that I realized you got something for doing so. Or take the rhythmic Brother Groove segments, which I would have loved more of.

Closing Comments:

Mario & Luigi: Brothership is a colorful and exuberant new entry in the RPG series. It offers dynamic and fun combat, some decent humor, and a surprising amount of replay value in branching choices and side quests. Despite that, there are some poorly implemented features, such as the Battle Plugs and Power Tap, as well as the sometimes glacial pacing of the adventure. Still, fans of turn-based RPGs will absolutely find something worthwhile in this Switch exclusive.